This blog is an exploration of principled problem solving which is an initiative at Guilford College encouraging a focus of people's abilities and experiences toward solving real-world problems under the guidance of the college’s core values of community, diversity, equality, excellence, integrity, justice and stewardship.

September 2011

09/27/2011

On Thursday, September 15, the Guilford community welcomed the San Francisco chapter of Pride at work—HAVOQ (Horizontal Alliance of Very Organized Queers). Three members of the volunteer group are currently on tour discussing their new zine entitled “Undoing Borders: A Queer Manifesto”, highlighting the ways in which borders, prisons and the conception of criminalization affect how individuals and communities operate in the world.

The group HAVOQ is a horizontally organized group (a group that aligns all members equally). The group organizes around the principles of fabulosity, which strives for open and inclusive language, and recognition of overlapping experiences. Through these guiding principles the group seeks to build ways living and advocating that do not replicate hierarchies that marginalize queer people. HAVOQ believes that in Queer organizing, Queer is considered a “how”, not a “what”. The ideology of queer organizing is central to breaking down binaries. Binaries can act as borders by separating us from another and constricting us. This group strives to create an effective community that creates positive change by operating under its central principles. Just as Guilford has its core values set in place, the principles of fabulosity serve as a guiding code to the members of the HAVOQ.

In 2007, ten members of HAVOQ came together to attend the first US/ Mexico ‘No Borders’ camp. Since then they have been working in the Bay Area and in the borderlands to resist violence surrounding the Mexican border. They have broadened their conception of borders by being advocates against the privatization of the prison system. Their zine is an opportunity for them to add to dialogue about how we conceive borders in our lives and communities.

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a forum for corporate representatives to meet with conservative state legislators to develop strategies for advancing corporate industry objectives. ALEC has played a crucial role in passing legislation that is designed to increase incarceration and promote the private prison industry in order for their product to stay in demand. As a result, legislation like Arizona’s SB1070 law requires police officers to detain or arrest anyone who they suspect lacks federal authorization to be in the United States. Arizona’s SB1070 and similar immigration laws across the country create borders within our communities, and lead to the incarceration of immigrants.

In their presentation HAVOQ discussed how the rhetoric surrounding criminalization leads to the dehumanization of individuals. Once people are viewed as criminals, locking them into cages is justified, and often portrayed as necessary. This rhetoric is produced to criminalize individuals instead of unjust corporate institutions who seek to make profit off of the misery of others.